Test Piece 1: Violence
Story by A Smiling Face on SoFurry
A duel between two people with some very bad blood.
“What are you?" Spits the unarmored man, blood and spit, though mostly blood leaving his mouth with his furious words
The man in the armor looks down at the man from behind his metal visor. “I think you know what I am, and who as well, but I think the question you meant to ask is. “What have you become?"" the man's voice echoes out from behind his metal-hidden face, the distinct metallic metal being present in his voice as he nears the unarmored man.
The unarmored man clamors to his feet, blood dripping to the floor from his many wounds. His breathing is shallow and rapid, and his quivering knees look to be mere moments from giving out. His ruby-colored blood glistens in the dusk light, the amber sun knowing this'll be the last time it shines on this son of man. “Fine then, “what have you become?" He spits, more blood finding itself on his chin, fur, and shirt as the armored man gets nearer and nearer with each heavy step.
The armored man brings the sword into the light, the rivets on his brigandine now lighting up like little amber sunsets on his white and red brigandine cuirass, the dull pieces of plate showing the scars of the confrontation between the two men seem to barely hang onto the frame of the armored man. “I have become a man, my friend, while you thought just because of your gifts you were above being a man, I relished in it. You bleed like I do; you grow tired like I do, your strength betrays you, mine is never enough. Now, I, of all people have a chance to give you, and what's left of this realm, a chance. To die quietly." The armored man says the slow burning anger he feels now finally showing in his voice
The unarmored man tries to force a laugh. “Haha-ha-urk-ha quietly? You call this quietly? Dragging someone from their home-ACK" The unarmored mans' rebuttal is cut short by a quick kick from the metal sabatons of the armored man. The unarmored man stares up at the cold metal helm of his assailant, just now noticing the dried blood and still wet splatters. His eyes go wide with the realization, before quickly narrowing. “You already got the others didn't you?" he says, his anger either gone or having now been focused.
The armored man looks at the man for a moment more. “Do think I would don this armor if I was coming only for you? The strongest of your little cabal was the first, after all they came for me first, I was content to leave you here in these mountains, the last hold of your little rebellion, alone, forgotten, and healing. This was fine with me, but it wasn't fine with her." He spits, moving over the unarmored man, resting his sword's point just above the heart. “That all being said, I'm not a very cruel person. She came for me, and now her corpse is in the river near my keep, and from a distance one may assume she's a well worn pincushion, or two depending on their eyesight. Her dear lover came next, and while he still breathes he lacks the feet needed to walk again. As for the rest they've either knelt or no longer have head connected to their shoulders." The man says, pride seeping into his anger. “To think, the rebels that once nearly brought my father to his knees, the ones that had my bride killed in her dress, and nearly stole the life away from my child. Those who came so close, now can't even stand against the man who they once held every card over. Its pathetic." He states, reaffirming his anger. “Do you kneel? Or shall I end you?" He asks for the first and last time.
The unarmored man looks up at the armored man and begins to rise. “I chose neither." He states coldly raising his fists. “You know I don't need armor to stand as an equal to you." He spits before launching into the fray of combat with a powerful right-hand punch. It connects but not with the armored man, but rather with one of the many trees in the forest surround them. The unarmored man feels the gaze of the armored one on him. The unarmored man nearly loses his left arm but the whistling sound of his foe's blade gave him away. “Not quiet enough." The unarmored man spits before a metal encased fist makes contact with his jaw knocking more blood and a tooth from.
The unarmored man in his daze turns to the armored man. “I told you already your strength betrayed you, not because you lack it, or it has abandoned you, but because you never tempered it." The armored man says no longer pretending to hide his anger. “Do you even know how long I've dreamed of this moment? Did even remember my face when you killed my father? My mother? My BRIDE?" Asks the armored man before making a precise swing with his thin bladed sword that hacks two the unarmored man's clawed fingers from his body. “Well, I did." Says the armored man, is anger having gained the same cold focus as his foe.
The unarmored man looks to his hand, he can feel his heartrate rise and the numbing kick of adrenaline. “You metal shell wearing coward." Spits the unarmored man before launching into a flurry of punches and claw attacks, wildly trying to hit the armored man in front of him. “WHY WON'T YOU DIE?" He shouts, almost doubling the speed of his attacks, despite this his foe, seems to be able to move like a fluid between his blows.
The armored man whispers. “Because I've fought you before, something no one else has ever. Your speed isn't that of when I fought you when I was just a youth, but your moves and methods are the same, all that strength and no mind to back it up. I've been weak compared to you and your rebels, just a man. My father tried to fight you toe-to-toe, like the tribesman his father was. I know no tribe, they're all dead, but the keeps took me in. So since you left me orphaned, then killed the last woman of my tribe, I have had no other loyalty than the keeps, and the keeps have given me all I could desire, and more than that, the opportunity to meet a woman who had the same anger towards you and your rebels as I." He says coldly. The unarmored man throws another right-handed strike, but this time the armored man parries by slicing his clawed index finger down the middle, splitting the claw, then the tough mammalian bone, through the soft tendons and prying apart the gaps of the bones in his hand, turning the unarmored mans' own strength against him, in less than a blink of an eye the blade of the armored man has found itself through the arm of the unarmored man, having split his radius away from his ulna, and soon forcing its way past the elbow, the lower half of the unarmored man's arm begins to fall away from his body, and the far weaker strike doesn't even turn the armored man's helmeted head.
The unarmored man looks at his arm, now feeling the sheering pain of the blood of his veins and arteries pouring over his nerves, The unarmored man stares into the eyes of his foe, he can see the net of blood vessels across the white of his eyes, the almost dot like pupils. The unarmored man knows what's coming “You're right, I didn't remember them until you came for us." He pants.
With a flick of his wrist and the force of his full body behind a thrust, the armored man slides his blade between his foe's ribs almost effortlessly before running through the soft innards and halting in the shoulder blade of his foe. With an equally graceful and lethal motion he slides his blade out, and swings to sever the unarmored man's left arm at the elbow, his misses his exact strike but his blade is sharp enough and strike strong enough to cut through the arm bones of his foe, and before the arm even hits the ground the armored man's blade is in the neck of his foe. Just as the wet thud of bloody meat on dirt fills their place of battle, the unarmored man dies, not with a scream, not with a whimper but just a defeated sigh.